Alabama registration headache, please help!

[Jenkins]

Hello everyone, first off thank you for this awesome site and the wealth of knowledge I have already picked up. It has been invaluable while working on and tuning my Hawk.

Now, to the headache (bear with me, TL;DR at the bottom). I purchased my Hawk off of Amazon, received a few days later, got the MCO, all paperwork, insurance, and thought I was set.

Went to my local DMV to get the tag, because based off all my research, it should be no problem getting registered and a tag in Alabama.

1st trip: arrive, tell the clerk I need to get a tag for my bike, she see's it is purchased out of state, says it will need to be inspected. Ok, cool, I've never purchased a vehicle out of state so I learned something.

2nd trip: arrive with bike, clerk and her supervisor go out, "inspect" it, which consisted of writing the VIN down, and we go back in. It is at this point she says the signature on the back of the MCO is illegible and I will have to send an affidavit to the dealership, have them sign it, mail it back, and I would be set. Fudge. Whatever. Ok.

3rd trip: arrive, again, at the DMV, will all my paperwork, affidavit, bill of sale, insurance, everything, and now they tell me the bike has to have a metal plate on the bike saying it is for on road use. I said the MCO has motorcycle on it, not off road use only, plus the bike has lights, horn, etc, and she says well we have to have that.

So my question, especially for the Alabama guys, did you have to go through this many hoops? I spent the rest of the afternoon at work today trying to find specific laws or regulations on Alabama's DMV site and nothing. I can do the Vermont route as a last ditch, but I honestly did not expect it to go like this. Plus now it will be longer than 20 days to register so I will get hit with a late registration fee because of all this.

TL;DR - getting a different story each time at the DMV and cannot register and get a tag.

Any advice? Please help!

Thank you